Marty Lowe enters his second season at Western Carolina and will coach the Catamount quarterbacks. In his first season, Lowe served as the passing game coordinator. In the spring of 2006, Lowe was promoted to offensive coordinator.

Prior to coming to Cullowhee in the fall of 2005, Lowe was a member of the Louisville Cardinal football broadcasts. Prior to that, Lowe spent the previous three seasons as head coach with Atlanta Force (2002-04) of the Arena Football League, guiding the team to a record eight wins in 2003 and leading the club to its first postseason appearance. He was the second youngest head coach in the AFL and had a career record of 17-19, including a 1-1 mark in the postseason.

Despite being hampered by injuries all season in 2003, the Force jumped out to a 6-2 mark to start the year and was able to ride the strength of its league-leading defense to advance to the quarterfinal round of the playoffs. Lowe, a former AFL quarterback himself, helped pave the way for rookie Leon Murray to emerge as one of the league's rising stars after the loss of two starting quarterbacks during the year. In 2002, Lowe replaced Robert Lyles as head coach after the Force started 1-4 only to finish the year winning five of their last eight games in the team's inaugural season.

Before joining the Force and spending the 2001 season serving as running backs coach for the University of Texas-El Paso, Lowe's coaching career in the AFL started when he joined the Nashville Kats as an offensive assistant in March 2000. With the Kats, Lowe had Nashville's offense clicking on all cylinders in the 2000 playoffs, scoring more than 50 points in each of the team's first three postseason contests to qualify for Arena Bowl XIV. Lowe went on to serve as the Kats' offensive coordinator, where his duties included creating and implementing the offensive game plan and coaching the team's wide receivers and quarterbacks.

Lowe, who played quarterback at the University of Louisville from 1991-95, spent two seasons in the Arena Football League. He played quarterback for the St. Louis Stampede in 1996 and joined the Texas Terrors in 1997. He was a starter at Texas until a knee injury ended his playing career.

In college, he started 22 consecutive games for the Cardinals, passing for 2,268 yards and 16 touchdowns as a senior in 1995. He is one of only four passers in Louisville history to throw for more than 2,000 yards in back-to-back seasons. Upon receiving his degree in Sport Administration from Louisville in 1996, Lowe joined the Cardinal coaching staff in 1997, breaking down practice and game tape. Also during his time on the Cardinal staff, he received his Master's degree in Education from Louisville in 1999.

Lowe, a native of Chattanooga, Tenn., was Mr. Football in Tennessee as a senior at Red Bank High School in 1990. Marty and his wife, the former Michelle Washle, have two children; son Bryce (6) and daughter Reece (2).